Tag Archives: Mitsubishi

Transform or be marginalised: industry experts explore the future of mining

What will the future of mining look like? Why does the industry need to change? How can mining embrace innovation? These were just some of the questions pondered when a panel of industry experts came together to discuss the need for change in the mining industry from an operator, solution, technology and investor perspective at IntelliSense.io’s recent ‘Inspirations20’ event.

In this keynote session, IntelliSense.io’s Founder and CEO, Sam G Bose, was joined by Damien Caby, Senior Vice President Oilfield & Mining Solutions, BASF; Ippei Akiyoshi, CVC Mineral Resources Group, Mitsubishi; and Cleve Lightfoot, Head of Innovation, BHP.

Central to this discussion was the notion that mining technology and processes have become outdated.

“We’re dealing with technology and processes that were developed about 100 years ago, that aren’t apt for what comes next,” BHP’s Lightfoot explained. “What we’ve done in between is we’ve made them bigger, better and more efficient and we’ve done a good job at that. What we haven’t focused on is how the context in which we operate has changed, and it’s changing more and more rapidly.”

When designing new technologies for the industry, IntelliSense.io’s Bose explained that demand for sustainability solutions has become a top priority.

“We’re seeing the next generation of miners who are entering the industry are becoming vocal components of this change to be able to mine in a more sustainable way,” he said. “They’re also looking for different systems which have access to information in real time, they can make decisions on data, and we’re also seeing this acting as a big driver for the industry to look at different ways to operate.”

Mitsubishi’s Akiyoshi supported this notion, adding investors are also increasingly interested in mining company’s environmental consciousness.

“Creating good economic value is not enough; to be in good shape, mining companies need to show that they are responsible and care about the environment,” he said.

Akiyoshi added: “I think mining has not been a consumer-oriented business in the past, but now the big, influential companies like Tesla and Apple are talking about the importance to think about where the materials in their products come from, and in what kind of operation that material is produced. In this case, we’re indirectly exposed to consumer’s consciousness and awareness of environmental value, so this has forced us to think more seriously about how to change.”

BASF’s Caby added that from an operational perspective, the demand for ethically-sourced and environmentally-conscious material is also heavily influencing the direction of the mining industry.

“We see that, both as a supplier to the mining sector and a supplier to the battery industry, there are tremendous changes in the nature, the quality of metals that are going to be required for the world, which in itself is a major driver for change,” he explained.

“I just don’t think we’re going to provide the nickel, the coper and cobalt for e-mobility the same way that 20 years ago the industry was able to react to the surge in demand for rare earths, and I think overall that’s the biggest driver of change.”

With the pressure to innovate or perish, panellists conceded it may appear difficult for mining companies to know where to start, but prioritising opportunities was key.

“We’re great at building big infrastructure projects, but we need to learn how to figure out how we take little bits and transform through little bits. So, accept the ambiguity, and the risk associated with these things through bites we can actually manage,” Lightfoot said.

Caby suggested that for mining operators unsure of how to start their innovation journey, the most pragmatic option may be to start with unlocking the value in their operational data.

“How do we start our journey of innovation? In our experience, it really starts with understanding of the situation of the mine and really diving into the situation of what’s the challenge, and that’s all really data based,” he said.

“That’s the reason behind our [Intelligent Mine] partnership with IntelliSense.io, that we can really accelerate that initiation and make it more effective by leveraging the power of digital. You can have much easier access to information, you can measure the impact of the improvements you make and correct the results for changes in feed and operating conditions, you can make simulations which really help address risk concerns.

“If you can run scenarios, if you can put boundaries, if you can try and see what can happen worse case on the computer compared to trying in real life, you really have a very powerful tool to enable innovation.”

Orica leverages MWD data, AI to create new blast loading design benchmark

Orica is looking to set a new benchmark for blast loading designs in Latin America after deploying its Design for Outcome solution in the region.

The company, focused on integrating its digital blasting tools to improve outcomes, is leveraging its BlastIQ digital blast optimisation platform within this new solution, Angus Melbourne, Chief Commercial and Technology Officer of Orica, told delegates at Massmin 2020 last week.

In a presentation titled, ‘Blasting’s Critical Role in Extracting Ore’, Melbourne mentioned Design for Outcome as an example of where the company was delivering integrated digital solutions in Latin America.

“Design for Outcome is an automated continual optimisation solution that sets a new benchmark for blast loading designs,” he said. “It utilises data science to process both upstream and downstream data to automate blast designs. This produces tailored and optimised blast designs by reducing blast variability and explosive consumption while increasing productivity.”

Using machine-learning algorithms, Design for Outcome processes measured-while-drilling data to classify ground hardness throughout each blast hole and then match explosives energy to hardness domains to automatically generate tailored blast loading designs, Melbourne explained.

Through artificial intelligence, these algorithms are trained with the data received from the fleet control systems (FMS) and previous blast results. This enables final automation of the blasting design process and its execution in the field with Orica’s smart control systems and programming interfaces, loading the blast accurately according to the generated design. These elements combine to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved, Melbourne said.

“Digitally-enabled blasting solutions such as Design for Outcome are allowing us to work with customers in different ways, to think and act differently and expand our role in the mining value chain,” he said.

Such a solution is part of the company’s plans to automate its segment of the mining process. This goal was strengthened last month with the launch of the Orica and Epiroc jointly developed Avatel™ semi-automated explosives delivery system.

A key enabling technology of Avatel, which is built on the foundation of Epiroc’s Boomer M2 carrier, and Orica’s automation vision is WebGen™, the company’s fully wireless initiation system. When combined with Orica’s LOADPlus™ smart control system, specifically designed on-board storage, assembly, digital encoding capability and Subtek™ Control bulk emulsion, Avatel provides customers with complete and repeatable control over blast energy from design through to execution, Orica says.

While referencing the second key pillar in Orica’s digital strategy, Melbourne highlighted the use of the company’s Bulkmaster™ 7 smart, connected explosives delivery system in Latin America during the virtual event.

The new delivery systems not only improve productivity but begin to digitise critical workflows between design and execution in drill and blast operations, according to Melbourne.

The Antamina copper mine in Peru, a joint venture between BHP, Glencore, Teck and Mitsubishi, will soon be leveraging such a system, with Melbourne confirming seven Bulkmaster 7 units had been shipped to the mine and were undergoing commissioning.

Orica’s third digitalisation pillar is the measurement of downstream impacts of the drill and blast process, which is where FRAGTrack™, the company’s automated rock fragmentation measurement device comes into play.

This device captures, analyses and reports real-time data for optimising blast operations, improving downstream productivity and tracking overall operational performance in mining and quarrying, Melbourne explained.

This system is active across several key customer sites in Latin America, with Teck’s Carmen de Andacollo operation in Chile being one of the first to adopt the technology in the world, according to Melbourne. He said the copper operation is using the insights to deliver efficiencies across the value chain through digitally enabled optimised blasting.

MineSense front and centre in bulk ore sorting game

Having just commercialised its bulk ore sorting technology at Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper (HVC) operations in British Columbia, Canada, MineSense is looking to show the wider industry just how effective this pre-concentration process can be.

IM spoke with President and CEO, Jeff More, to find out more about the company’s ShovelSense and BeltSense technologies and how the Vancouver-based startup has been able to secure investment from the likes of ABB, Caterpillar and Mitsubishi.

IM: Can you explain in a little more detail how your ShovelSense and BeltSense solutions work?

JM: The base technology for both is X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) – a technology that has been around for some time. What we have done to this existing technology, which is quite unique, is three things:

  • One, we have extended dramatically the range of XRF. Traditionally XRF would almost have to be held to the surface of a rock to get accurate measurements. The range extension allows us to work in the shovel environment where we are working across metres of volume;
  • Second is speed. Our system is extremely fast. High speed analysis is required on our conveyor belt applications, but this is even more important in the shovel, where we’re measuring dynamically; as the material is flowing into the shovel, to get a representative reading, you have to be able to take very fast readings of the material as it is moving past the sensors;
  • The third is robustness. On a shovel, you are in a nasty environment from a shock and vibration perspective. We developed a system with sensitive components – the XRF itself, as well as the computing devices around it – that can stand up to that very high shock- and vibration-type environment.

IM: The most high-profile examples of the application of your ShovelSense technology have been at copper mines (HVC, in particular); is the detection technology particularly effective in these ores? Is it being trialled elsewhere?

JM: The current sensing we have with the XRF is very effective in a certain section of the periodic table, which nicely covers the major base metals. We’re focused on copper, nickel, zinc and polymetallic versions of those three. The fourth area of focus is iron ore.

We’ve selected copper as our first focus because of the size of the market and the geography. We have done most of our work in copper, but we now also have operating systems in nickel and zinc.

On a lab scale, the technology has been very effective in iron ore, but iron ore is a very different flow sheet, so we have purposely set it as our fourth market in what we call our primary clusters.

We have five mine site customers at the moment – three copper, one zinc-lead and one nickel-polymetallic.

We were very much focused on North America and, in particular, British Columbia for our first pilots and trials as it was quite easy for us to service in our back yard. The first international market was Chile, for obvious reasons in terms of copper production, and we now have a full MineSense entity and team operating in Chile and Peru.

We’re staggering the rest of our global expansion. We’re now quite active from a business development perspective in southern Africa – South Africa, Zambia, DRC – and have activity in Australia.

We have Systems installed at two different copper mines in British Columbia, one at a very large nickel-polymetallic complex in Sudbury, Ontario, and will have a fourth system operating in Alaska. We also have two mines, but four systems, operating in Chile. By the end of Q2, we will have another three systems operating in Chile.

We did all our development work for the system at Teck’s HVC operation and we’re now completely commercial there. We officially commissioned our first system in December, the second system is being commissioned as we speak and the third and fourth will be installed and commissioned in late-March. This will completely equip their fleet.

IM: Teck has previously said the use of ShovelSense has resulted in “a net measurable increase in the amount of ore (and the associated head grade)” it has available to feed its mill at HVC. Are these results in keeping with your expectations for the technology?

JM: Yes, absolutely. We base everything on, what we call, our value model. Very early in our engagement process, we set out a detailed model that calculates the profit improvement that mine will see – we did the same for Teck HVC.

We agreed on a target at HVC and are actually exceeding that estimate. Most importantly, Teck is also seeing that value and is estimating a great overall impact at that mine.

This is an abridged version of a Q&A to be published in the ore sorting feature in the March issue of International Mining.